Freedom and the Omnipotent Power to Assassinate
posted 04/23/2015, 4:31 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)[Category: Commentary]As a kid growing up, did you ever think you'd live under a government that had the omnipotent power to assassinate you and every other American citizen? If you heard about some communist regime or other totalitarian government wielding the omnipotent power to assassinate its own citizens, you wouldn't be surprised. But I'll bet that the vast majority of Americans never thought they would end up living under a governmental structure that had that sort of power over the citizenry.

Truth Is the Enemy of the State
posted 04/22/2015, 2:29 PM (Paul Craig Roberts)[Category: Commentary]US Representative Ed Royce (R, CA) is busy at work destroying the possibility of truth being spoken in the US. On April 15 at a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs of which Royce is chairman, Royce made use of two minor presstitutes to help him redefine all who take exception to Washington's lies as "threats" who belong to a deranged pro-Russian propaganda cult.

Washington's problem is that whereas Washington controls the print and TV media in the US and its ... (more)

Jeb Bush Praises Obama's Expansion of NSA Surveillance
posted 04/22/2015, 2:27 PM (Glenn Greenwald)[Category: Commentary] One of the most glaring myths propagated by Washington -- especially the two parties’ media loyalists -- is that bipartisanship is basically impossible, that the two parties agree on so little, that they are constantly at each other’s throats over everything. As is so often the case for Washington partisan propaganda, the reality is exactly the opposite: from trade deals to Wall Street bailouts to a massive National Security and Penal State, the two parties are in full agreement on the bulk of... (more)

You can say that again. And again. And again. The federal government spends trillions of dollars a year, and for what? Health care for seniors, some parks, an inefficient postal service, and a military that seems to exist everywhere... (more)

Police Deserve No Sympathy Until the Blue Line Breaks
posted 04/17/2015, 12:05 PM (The Daily Bell)[Category: Commentary]One of the great ironies in American policing is that because of these highly controversial events that have been documented, there's a perception that the profession is somehow out of control or failing in its responsibilities to engage in fair and impartial policing. That is of great concern. We cannot be believed if we don't take decisive actions when our officers are clearly wrong. Bad police performance that's not motivated by malice needs to be dealt with very sternly, including terminatio... (more)

Thursday April 16th, 2015

Slavery and the Income Tax
posted 04/16/2015, 12:08 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)[Category: Commentary]Not surprisingly, the New York Times has an op-ed today entitled "Shaming Those Who Skip Out on Taxes," which calls on the federal government to publicly shame tax delinquents as part of its efforts to increase tax collections.

I've got a better idea: How about people in the private sector publicly shaming everyone who favors the continuation of the federal income tax?

Except for a brief period during the Civil War, the federal income tax was not a part of America's... (more)

Will Washington Kill Us All?
posted 04/16/2015, 11:01 AM (Paul Craig Roberts)[Category: Commentary]Did you know that Washington keeps 450 nuclear ICBMs on “hair-trigger alert”? Washington thinks that this makes us “safe.” The reasoning, if it can be called reason, is that by being able to launch in a few minutes, no one will try to attack the US with nuclear weapons. US missiles are able to get on their way before the enemy’s missiles can reach the US to destroy ours.

If this makes you feel safe, you need to read Eric Schlosser’s book, Command and Control.

It began inauspiciously enough. I needed a blender because everyone seems to be making smoothies. Surely this is no big deal, I thought. I need a machine that grinds stuff up and turns it into a drinkable liquid. I'll head to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and grab one.

The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us. Yet no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in... (more)

Farekh is an American citizen. Two years ago, the Pentagon and the CIA -- the two principal components of the national-security state branch of the federal government -- were urging President Obama to authorize an assassination of Farekh. Apparently ... (more)

The Awful Implications of Hillary's Candidacy
posted 04/13/2015, 9:41 AM (Jeffrey Tucker)[Category: Commentary]The Clinton campaign for president is going to shake out the same way that the Obama candidacy did. In the end, its primary appeal will be to identity politics. Voters will be asked to make possible a historic advance for women. Only this way, we will be told, can we as a nation (people, humanity, whatever) put to rest a long history of subjugation and exclusion.

The history is correct but the solution is not. There is nothing necessarily wrong with cheering the election of a wom... (more)

The State Holds Us Back
posted 04/13/2015, 9:41 AM (Jeffrey Tucker)[Category: Commentary]"The author does not understand socialism," read the letter from MacMillan in reply to the submission of Ayn Rand's novella Anthem. They turned it down. Actually, the publisher didn't understand socialism. Hardly anyone did in 1937, when this book was written. Rand, however, did understand socialism. She understood it so well that she knew it would result in the opposite of what it promised and that its proponents would eventually come to embrace its grim reality, rather than repudiate the syste... (more)

Sunday April 12th, 2015

Libertarians Must Get History Right
posted 04/12/2015, 11:38 AM (Sheldon Richman)[Category: Commentary]Understanding history as best we can is important for obvious reasons. It’s particularly important for libertarians who want to persuade people to the freedom philosophy. In making their case for individual freedom, mutual aid, social cooperation, foreign nonintervention, and peace, libertarians commonly place great weight on historical examples most often drawn from the early United States. So if they misstate history or draw obviously wrong conclusions, they will discredit their case. Much dep... (more)

The latest manifestation of this psychological phenomenon is reflected in a piece by longtime conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady. In the article, entitled "Obama Rehabilitates the Castro Brothers," O'Grady goes through all sorts of lamentations and machinations over President Obama's... (more)

Most people recognize the absurdity of trying to regulate romantic relationships. What many don’t realize is that this absurdity stems not form the nature of these relationships, but from the nature of state intervention. For the same reasons that regulating dating would be counter-productive, regulating many ... (more)

There is something about politics that elicits in everyone a faux sense of certainty. No matter how many times that political results contradict political promise, we still mostly pretend as if we know for certain what will happen when so and so wins. We know th... (more)

Tuesday April 7th, 2015

From "Civil Rights" to Cultural Totalitarianism
posted 04/07/2015, 5:16 AM (William Norman Grigg)[Category: Commentary]The public memory of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement has been shaped by iconic images of state-licensed violence – peaceful protesters being beaten and otherwise abused by police for exercising the right to seek redress of grievances. The civil rights movement began as an effort to remove government impediments to individual liberty. By 1964 it had become a concerted effort to subject all private functions to government scrutiny and regimentation.

But neither American teenagers nor any other American is able to reconcile the freedom he is so proud of with the fact that the federal government forces every man to register for the draft when he reaches the age of 18.

How to Shrink the Government's Carbon Footprint
posted 04/07/2015, 5:11 AM (Laurence M. Vance)[Category: Commentary]Barack Obama wants to shrink the federal government’s “carbon footprint.” This is a wonderful idea that all limited government conservatives, constitutionalists, and above all, libertarians, should wholeheartedly support. Too bad Obama’s plan will hardly make a dent in the volume or the severity of the federal government’s noxious emissions.... (more)

Saturday April 4th, 2015

How to Build a Nuclear Bomb Scare
posted 04/04/2015, 5:46 AM (The New American)[Category: Commentary]Two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s much-anticipated March 3 speech to a joint session of Congress, a commentary by Fareed Zakaria appeared in the Washington Post under the headline “Netanyahu Enters Never-Never Land.” Some of our nation’s lawmakers might have taken that as an unflattering description of the Congress of the United States, but Zakaria was directing the Peter Pan analogy not at members of Congress, but at Netanyahu himself and the prime minister’s strategy, ... (more)

Consider that for more than 100 years -- from the inception of the Republic until the 20th century -- the American people lived under the most unusual and remarkable governmental system in history.

No, I'm not suggesting that it was a libertarian paradise by any means, especially when we throw slavery into the mix and such lesser things as governme... (more)

The Root of Support for the Drug War
posted 04/02/2015, 8:27 PM (Laurence M. Vance)[Category: Commentary]Although many states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, some states have decriminalized the possession of certain amounts of marijuana, and four states (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, bipartisan support for the drug war throughout the United States continues unabated and unquestioned.

Why?

Why do so many Americans think that the property of other Americans should be confiscated, and ... (more)

CEOs Against Private Property
posted 04/02/2015, 8:27 PM (Ryan McMaken)[Category: Commentary]The governor of Indiana last week signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, modeled on similar federal legislation. The Indiana statute states that a person’s religious beliefs may not be “substantially burden[ed]” by anti-discrimination statutes. In other words, if anti-discrimination laws could be construed as forcing a person to violate his own religious conscie... (more)

'The Hunting Ground': Reaping Profit from Rape Hysteria
posted 04/01/2015, 8:58 PM (Wendy McElroy)[Category: Commentary]When the ‘documentary’ “The Hunting Ground” premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, it was advertised as a “piercing, monumental exposé of rape culture on campuses.” In fact, its objectivity and perspective have been systematically dismantled since then. The film is best understood as a volley in the campus consent wars now raging across North America. It is part of a manufactured and coordinated hysteria about campus rape that imposes a politically-correct agenda and strips accused male s... (more)

Mandatory Voting: A Bad Idea
posted 03/31/2015, 5:00 PM (Sheldon Richman)[Category: Commentary]President Obama thinks that forcing us to vote might be a good idea. That he could favor punishing people for not voting -- which means taking their money by force and imprisoning or even shooting them if they resist -- is unsurprising. The essence of government is violence -- aggressive, not defensive, force. Government is not usually described in such unrefined terms, ... (more)

Wise words by the father of our country, but ones, unfortunately, rejected by modern-day Americans, who love and idolize the enormously overgrown military establishment that now characterizes our federal governmental system.... (more)

Monday March 30th, 2015

The Right to Discriminate Against Ellen Pao
posted 03/30/2015, 6:29 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)[Category: Commentary]Silicon Valley executive Ellen Pao is licking her wounds after a jury ruled against her last week in her gender-discrimination suit against former employer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers. Pao had accused the firm of not promoting her because she's a woman. The jury ruled against her by finding, as a factual determination, that she was not the victim of gender discrimination.

But the obvious question arises: Why should such a case even have to reach a jury to determine the fac... (more)

But the problem with conservatives is that while they want to get the federal government out of education, they steadfastly want state and local governments to continue "educating" children. Conservatives fail to see that indoctrination comes not just with federal control over education b... (more)

The US military no longer does war. It does assassinations, usually of the wrong people. The main victims of the US assassination policy are women, children, village elders, weddings, funerals, and occasionally US soldiers mistaken for Taliban by US surveillance operating with the visu... (more)

Extradition Hypocrisy
posted 03/26/2015, 4:23 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)[Category: Commentary]A murder case in Italy stands to expose the U.S. government's hypocritical stand on extradition, the legal process by which one country forcibly turns over a person within its jurisdiction to another country to stand trial for a criminal offense committed in the latter country.

Let's assume that John Doe, a citizen of Country A, is accused of murdering a person in Country B when he was traveling there. If there is no extradition treaty between the two nations, Country A has no leg... (more)

Wednesday March 25th, 2015

The Only Truly Compliant, Submissive Citizen in a Police State Is a Dead One
posted 03/25/2015, 3:41 PM (The Rutherford Institute)[Category: Commentary]"Do exactly what I say, and we’ll get along fine. Do not question me or talk back in any way. You do not have the right to object to anything I may say or ask you to do, or ask for clarification if my demands are unclear or contradictory. You must obey me under all circumstances without hesitation, no matter how arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, or blatantly racist my commands may be. Anything other than immediate perfect servile compliance will be labeled as resisting arrest, and expose ... (more)

Texas Blogger, Kent McManigal recently encountered some modern day Boy Scouts while out camping. After talking to some of these Scouts, he relates his disappointment at how few useful skills these Scouts had been taught. He offers an alternative organization to be formed- The “Browncoat S... (more)

Hillary Clinton Is a Conservative Republican
posted 03/25/2015, 3:38 PM (Laurence M. Vance)[Category: Commentary]Although she is no longer first lady, a U.S. senator from New York, or Secretary of State, and has not officially announced her candidacy to be the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton can't seem to stay out of the news. Conservatives love to hate Hillary almost as much as they love to hate Obama.

And rightly so.

Most lately it has come out that she used a private server for all of her e-mails when she was President Obama's secretary of state from 2009 ... (more)

Did you know that the government of Iran steals your cash if they find more than loose change in your car? They don't arrest you for any crime, for the simple reason you didn't commit any crime; but it isn't about crime and punishment--it's about"legalizing" theft by the state.

So the government toadies don't charge you with a crime or arrest you--they just steal... (more)

Bush's and Maduro's Power Grabs
posted 03/25/2015, 3:34 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)[Category: Commentary]The Venezuelan legislature has just granted President Nicolas Maduro’s request for emergency powers to deal with the crisis posed by President Obama’s recent decree that Venezuela poses a grave threat to U.S. “national security” and Obama’s imposition of sanctions on Venezuelan officials.

Not surprisingly, U.S. conservatives are ridiculing Maduro for exaggerating the threat posed by the U.S. national-security state and using it as an excuse for assuming extraordinary powers.... (more)

Floating above the crowd, in a way that no one could see, was a different world of information. Students were using Yik Yak to make fun of the guy, mocking his every sentence. Some smart cookie among the media picked up on it and reported it. It's politics so the revelation beca... (more)

I Hate Mount Rushmore
posted 03/24/2015, 3:57 PM (Ryan McMaken)[Category: Commentary]Ninety years ago this month, on March 3, 1925, Congress authorized the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, and thus began the effort to take a perfectly good mountain and ruin it with the faces of a bunch of politicians.

The idea was conceived as nothing more than a tourism gimmick. That is, it was supposed to draw tourists to South Dakota. And it has certainly accomplished this goal. Countless tourists stream into the Black Hills every year to shell out ten bucks or so (... (more)

Monday March 23rd, 2015

How Big Is Government in the United States?
posted 03/23/2015, 1:12 PM (Robert Higgs)[Category: Commentary]How big is government in the United States? The answer depends on the concept used to define its size. Although many such concepts are available, and several are used from time to time, by far the most common measure, especially in studies by economists, is total government spending (G) as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Using official data available at the online repository maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and data available online for... (more)

Before IE Dies Completely, Remember the Browser Wars
posted 03/23/2015, 1:11 PM (Jeffrey Tucker)[Category: Commentary]Without much fanfare, this month Microsoft announced that it is phasing out its notorious Internet browser called Internet Explorer. In all the news stories about this, the main focus has been on how it has been outcompeted by Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, among many other browsers on the market. In addition, mobile applications are making gigantic gains over web browsing in general.

Indeed that is true.

On the platforms I've managed, I watched as IE went from 95% ... (more)

But while organized, physical violence is a repulsive form of oppression, the state employs a variety of tactics to wage war on its own citizens. They are more subtle than batons and guns but far more effective than violence alone. They seek to conquer not bodies, but minds.

1) Over-Medication and the Drug War - Whether out of rabid gr... (more)

The Well-Bred Zombies
posted 03/20/2015, 2:43 PM (Butler Shaffer)[Category: Commentary]Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing
and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value
For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery
of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to
the level of a machine.

- Oscar Wilde

For untold centuries, mankind has experimented with plant and animal life in an effort to produce organisms that might prove beneficial not only for human survival, but just ... (more)

While the price of oil continues to plunge to record lows, drivers are celebrating, and oil executives are sweating it out. But never fear, the government is running to the rescue -- of the oil industry. The Department of Energy is planning to enter the market with a purchase of 5 million barrels. It’s necessary for national security, don’t you know.

On one side was the Old Right. They were a group of politicians and writers who coalesced in opposition to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and entry into World War II (WWII). They advocated global free trade, nonintervention, personal freedom and limited government; they did so with rare passion a... (more)